State v. Echeverria

862 So. 2d 163, 2003 WL 22798933
Louisiana Court of Appeal·Decided November 25, 2003·No. 03-KA-898·Published·Cited by 15 cases

Opinion

862 So.2d 163 (2003)

STATE of Louisiana
v.
Christina ECHEVERRIA.

No. 03-KA-898.

Court of Appeal of Louisiana, Fifth Circuit.

November 25, 2003.

*164 Paul D. Connick, Jr., District Attorney, Terry M. Boudreaux, Thomas J. Butler, Cameron M. Mary, Assistant District Attorneys, Gretna, LA, for The State of Louisiana, Plaintiff-Appellee.

Margaret S. Sollars, Thibodaux, LA, for Cristina Echeverria, Defendant-Appellant.

Panel composed of Judges MARION F. EDWARDS, CLARENCE E. McMANUS and WALTER J. ROTHSCHILD.

WALTER J. ROTHSCHILD, Judge.

Defendant, Cristina Echeverria, was charged by a bill of information on October 31, 2001 with theft of currency valued at over $1,000 in violation of LSA-R.S. 14:67, a charge to which the defendant pled not guilty. On November 8, 2002, a six-person jury returned a verdict of guilty of "theft of property with a value of $500 or more."[1]

After denying the defendant's motion for new trial on December 6, 2002, the trial judge sentenced the defendant to five years of imprisonment at hard labor. The judge suspended the sentence, placed the defendant on five years of active probation, and ordered the defendant to pay a $300 fine, as well as other specified fees. Additionally, the trial judge ordered the defendant *165 to pay restitution as a condition of probation "in that amount that the State will provide to the probation officer." This timely appeal follows.

FACTS

At trial, Yolanda Gibson, the controller at the Landmark Hotel in Metairie, testified that the defendant stole money from the hotel while the defendant was employed as the credit manager in the accounting department. According to Ms. Gibson, the defendant worked at the hotel for eight years until she left in December of 2000.[2] Ms. Gibson, the defendant's immediate supervisor, explained that she initially became suspicious of the defendant after an anonymous phone caller told her that the defendant was stealing from the hotel. After conducting an investigation, Ms. Gibson could find no evidence to confirm this information. Ms. Gibson's suspicions were again aroused when a representative from a credit card company informed her that the Landmark had requested a credit on a card that had never been charged by the hotel. The credit card belonged to one of the defendant's relatives.

After a two-month investigation into the defendant's transactions, Ms. Gibson discovered that the defendant had stolen money by manipulating the hotel's accounting system, in particular the Accounts Receivable Miscellaneous Clearing account, hereinafter referred to as the "A/R" account, and by removing cash from the bank deposits. Ms. Gibson testified that an independent audit had verified her findings.

Ms. Gibson explained the hotel's accounting procedures involved codes to represent transactions. One of these codes, "CSH" (cash), was used to represent a cash or check payment, and "CLP" (city ledger payment) was used to represent a check payment. Additionally, the code "TRC" (transfer credit) was used to transfer money from one account to another, as in the case when a credit is erroneously applied to the wrong account. A "TRD" (transfer debit) code would represent the debit to the account where the money was first placed. According to Ms. Gibson, only she and the defendant had access to post payments to the A/R account.

Ms. Gibson explained that the only way to post a check as a payment is by using the CSH or CLP code. Otherwise, the accounting system does not record the check as money received into the hotel, and the check will not be included in the amount of money that should be deposited in the bank. Ms. Gibson detailed three incidents in which the defendant posted checks with a "TRC" code rather than CSH or CLP codes. In two of these incidents, the defendant included the checks in question when she made the hotel's deposits in the bank. However, the deposit slips reflected that not all of the cash was deposited in the bank. The third incident involved transactions in which the defendant posted funds to the hotel as transfer credits, instead of cash or checks, for her daughter's wedding reception that was held at the hotel.

The first incident that Ms. Gibson detailed involved a function that the National Kidney Foundation held at the hotel in October and November of 2000. Ms. Gibson testified that the hotel's computer records revealed that the defendant had posted a check for the National Kidney Foundation in the amount of $2039.63 as a transfer credit on November 8, 2000. According *166 to Ms. Gibson, the credit was manually placed in the A/R account due to a loophole in the computer system. Further, Ms. Gibson said that the computer records do not reflect that the check was ever posted as a check or cash transaction, meaning that the money was never included as an amount that should be counted in the hotel's deposits. Ms. Gibson testified that the records reflected that $2,887.16 in cash should have been deposited on November 9, 2000. However, the defendant only deposited $397.46 in cash that day. Ms. Gibson testified that the reduced cash deposit went undetected because the defendant included the $2039.63 check (which had not been counted in the computer system) in the deposit.

The second incident involved a function with Alcoholic Anonymous held in April of 2000. As with the National Kidney Foundation's check, Ms. Gibson testified that the hotel's computer records reflected that the defendant had posted the check for this function as a transfer credit. According to Ms. Gibson, the computer records did not reflect that the check, in the amount of $1750, was ever posted with a check or cash code. Ms. Gibson testified that the records reflected that $4,450.98 in cash should have been deposited on May 26, 2000. However, the defendant only deposited $866.38 in cash that day. The reduced cash deposit went undetected because the defendant included the $1,750 check (which had not been counted in the computer system) in the deposit.

The final incident involved the defendant's daughter's wedding reception held at the hotel in August 2000. In this incident, the defendant opened the account and wrote a $500 check as a deposit. Ms. Gibson testified that this check, number 4804, was properly posted with a CLP code. However, the defendant posted another check (number 4843), as a transfer credit. She also posted $500 as a deposit and $213.35 as the balance paid in full, with transfer credit codes. Ms. Gibson acknowledged that both checks had been deposited in the bank. However, Ms. Gibson stated that the computer system had no record that check number 4843 and the transactions for $500 or $213.35 had ever been posted as cash or check payments.

The defendant and four witnesses testified at trial. The defendant admitted that she had the A/R account set up when the hotel first set up the computer system. However, she denied that she had manipulated the accounting system or stolen money from Landmark. While the defendant admitted that she made the deposit to the bank for the hotel on November 9, 2000, the defendant denied that she entered the corresponding credit to National Kidney's account in the A/R account. However, the defendant said that if she had posted the check to the A/R account, it would have been because the charges needed to be researched, since there were two accounts for National Kidney and neither account amounted to the total amount of the check. According to the defendant, the check remained in the miscellaneous account until the prop

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State v. Echeverria, 862 So. 2d 163, 2003 WL 22798933 (La. Ct. App. 2003).

862 So. 2d 163 (State v. Echeverria) — published by Counsel Stack Legal Research, free access to 12M+ legal documents.

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